Founder Profile

Pew is an independent nonprofit organization – the sole beneficiary of seven individual trusts established between 1948 and 1979 by four generous and committed siblings. Learn more about one of our founders: Mary Ethel Pew.

Just minutes before it was to take effect, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking a Mississippi law that would have allowed private citizens and some public officials professing a “sincere religious belief” to deny services to gays and lesbians.

Illinois political leaders cut a deal on a makeshift budget to keep state government afloat for six months, ensure schools open this fall and rescue the financially struggling Chicago Public Schools — a temporary reprieve to the stalemate that's gripped the Capitol for a year and a half.

A federal judge blocked an Indiana law that would have banned abortions based solely on a fetus’s disability or genetic anomaly, suggesting that it was an illegal limit on a woman’s long-established constitutional right. The judge also held up a state ban on abortions motivated solely by a fetus’s race or sex.

Iowa’s highest court ruled that all felonies are "infamous crimes" resulting in permanent disenfranchisement under the state Constitution. The decision upholds what critics say is one of the harshest felon voting laws in the nation, and ensures the state will not see a significant shift in voter eligibility ahead of the 2016 election.

Following threats to sue Gilead Sciences over the cost of its hepatitis C treatments, the commonwealth of Massachusetts has reached a deal with the drugmaker for rebates for some of its residents who are infected with the chronic disease.

After years of decline, enrollment at most historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Louisiana is on the rise. Officials attribute the shift to an increase in the number of non-black students attending HBCUs, as well as recent racial conflicts at predominantly white institutions.

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill patients cannot end their lives with help from doctors, overturning a district court decision that doctors could not be prosecuted under the state's assisted suicide law. Doctors can legally help terminally ill patients end their lives in five states — California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

The provision, included in a bill outlining procedures for releasing body camera footage, allows government and private organizations in North Carolina to operate programs allowing drug addicts to obtain clean needles and syringes.

The revised Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit doubles the current $20 million cap on annual incentives, removes the $5 million cap per project, and raises the incentive rate to a flat 30 percent of production dollars spent in Ohio.

A new Kansas law enables public employees, except school employees, to conceal firearms and carry them on the job without any gun safety training. They were already allowed to carry in public office buildings in most cases, now they may carry weapons when they go out into the community on official business.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in response to huge algae blooms that have forced South Florida beaches to close. The order will allow state and local authorities to take action, for instance by redirecting water flows into Lake Okeechobee.

Despite the state’s best efforts, Hawaii saw an increase of some 300 homeless people this year, a 4 percent increase over last year. It was the fifth consecutive year in which the state’s homeless population rose.